By Shu’aibu Adamu, Addis Ababa
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has granted Pan-African University a 45-million-dollar grant in its effort to provide quality higher education in Africa, a statement said..
Pan African University (PAU) is a flagship programme of the AU, established to serve as a veritable instrument for achieving the union’s vision of prosperity, peace and integration on the continent.
The statement, issued by the AU Commission (AUC) Directorate of Information and Communication and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Addis Ababa on Wednesday said the agreement was signed in Tunisia.
“The agreement for AfDB support was signed by the AU Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, Mr Martial Ikounga, and the bank’s Vice-President for Agriculture, Human Development and Governance, Mr Aly Abou-Sabaa, on Tuesday in Tunis.
“The agreement covers the bank’s support to the Pan African University amounting to 45 million dollars, “ the statement said.
AU vision for establishing PAU is to exemplify excellence and quality in African Higher Education and Research through world class programmes at Masters’ and doctoral levels in five thematic areas.
The PAU programmes are currently hosted in existing universities in three AU member-states with the first batch of students in Kenya, Cameroon and Nigeria.
PAU was established in 2011 by the AU Commission, with campuses in University of Yaounde, which was chosen to host an institute of humanities, social sciences and good governance for the Central Africa sub-region.
In East Africa, Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology was chosen to host basic sciences, technology and innovation, while Nigeria’s University of Ibadan is hosting life and earth sciences in the West Africa sub-region.
The statement said the first three as well as the central governance of the PAU would benefit from the AfDB grant, while the fourth and fifth hubs are expected to begin in 2014 in Algeria and 2015 in the southern Africa region.
The AfDB vice-president explained that the bank’s human resource development programme was focused on addressing unemployment among the youth, “seeing that African youths account for 60 per cent of the unemployed. “
Abou-Sabaa identified the lack of technical and entrepreneurial skills and information on the job markets as major causes for the current unemployment situation in Africa and pledged that the bank would invest over two billion dollars in the area of skills development over a period of time.
“The AfDB current grant agreement will support the first three institutes as well as the central governance of the PAU from the AU headquarters and the PAU directorate.
“The bank official called on the AUC to ensure quality as well as gender equity in the PAU toward meeting Africa’s development agenda,’` the statement said.
